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The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America's Dilemma | 
| Author: Alex Kotlowitz
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  51 reviews
Sales Rank: 105495
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 038547721X
Dewey Decimal Number: 977.411
EAN: 9780385477215
ASIN: 038547721X
Publication Date: January 19, 1999
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Amazon.com
The author of There Are No Children Here follows up that magnificent effort with the gripping story of a mysterious death in southwest Michigan. A black teenager surfaces in the St. Joseph River, drowned. How did he get there? The towns of Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, divided by both race and the river, grapple with the possibilities in this maddeningly difficult case. Alex Kotlowitz puts his sharp reporting skills to good work here, describing in detail everything that is known about Eric McGinnis's short life and untimely death. But the book is best at plumbing the racial psychology of these mutually suspicious communities. The Other Side of the River has that can't-put-it-down quality found in the best narrative nonfiction, and it speaks to issues affecting all of America.
Product Description
Alex Kotlowitz's There Are No Children Here was more than a bestseller; it was a national event. His beautifully narrated, heartbreaking nonfiction account of two black boys struggling to grow up in a Chicago public housing complex spent eight weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, was a made-for-television movie starring and produced by Oprah Winfrey, won many distinguished awards, and sparked a continuing national debate on the lives of inner-city children.
In The Other Side of the River, his eagerly awaited new book, Kotlowitz takes us to southern Michigan. Here, separated by the St. Joseph River, are two towns, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. Geographically close, they are worlds apart, a living metaphor for America's racial divisions: St. Joseph is a prosperous lakeshore community and ninety-five percent white, while Benton Harbor is impoverished and ninety-two percent black. When the body of a black teenaged boy from Benton Harbor is found in the river, unhealed wounds and suspicions between the two towns' populations surface as well. The investigation into the young man's death becomes, inevitably, a screen on which each town projects their resentments and fears.
The Other Side of the River sensitively portrays the lives and hopes of the towns' citizens as they wrestle with this mystery--and reveals the attitudes and misperceptions that undermine race relations throughout America. In this gripping and ultimately profound book, Alex Kotlowitz proves why he is one of this country's foremost writers on the ever explosive issue of race.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 46 more reviews...
 Too simplistic January 1, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"The Other Side of the River" is a thought-provoking read. It seems reasonably unbiased, but appears eager to pigeonhole the characters and should have asked some deeper questions.
Kotlowitz filled his book with two stock character types: black Benton Harbor residents suspicious and resentful of the surrounding whites, white St Joe residents who are either bumbling small town officials or overtly racist. This is too simplistic.
I grew up in Stevensville (which Kotlowitz calls "Lakeshore", the name of our public school district), which borders St Joe to the south. It's incredibly hard to live there and not develop bad attitudes toward Benton Harbor. Benton Harbor's crime and unemployment rates are one of the worst in the state. Its local politics is a comedy of errors. The mostly white communities south of the river are certainly not wealthy, but comfortable and safe. Most of the residents across the river don't want to have racist attitudes, but are constantly bombarded with these contrasts. They'd love to see the situation change, but Benton Harbor often seems beyond hope. Most don't see anything they could do to help, so the easiest solution is to avoid the place and pretend it doesn't exist.
Stereotyping everyone south of the river as a racist is just as bad as stereotyping all Benton Harbor residents as criminals. What Kotlowitz misses (just barely, for there are hints of it in his interviews with Jim Reeves and the McGinnis family) is that the vast majority of people on both sides of the river are good, honest, well-meaning folks who just don't know what to do about the situation.
While Kotlowitz does establish that racism exists on both sides, he would have better served his readers by at least acknowledging the existance of deeper questions, such as "why?" or "So how do we fix it?".
Disjointed, unstable focus October 16, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Kotlowitz's first book was stunning and I think he should have stuck with that type of writing. This book is a disappointing second. The entire story is rambling and often has no discernible point. I'm sure this is much more meaningful for residents of the town. The racial thing has been slanted so many ways in the media by now, I still think that 'The Eye of the Storm' from 1968 takes the cake.
 read in one night! a real page turner April 30, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Here's the thing - you know who died, and you know where the body was found and in what condition, but you don't know the why and how. And you still can't put this book down!
Alex Kotlowitz is a master story teller of a real life murder in a racially charged small town, geographically divided by a river but racially divided by mistrust and suspicion. His research is detailed and thorough, and the reader finds himself quickly immersed and emotionally invovled with the characters. Every character is complex and likeable. There are no bad guys/good guys. Just an unsolved murder, in a town yearning to heal.
Sometimes the truth is difficult to take February 18, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was an excellent book--painful to read in some places, but important when it comes to understanding the role of racism and race relations in this country. I find it interesting to read the comments from some of the residents of St. Joe's who claim that their town was misrepresented. My sense is that many simply found their deeply entrenched bigoted attitudes and racism difficult to take when detailed in print for the world to read. Perhaps they should spend less time defending the indefensible and more on changing the fabric of their town and its relationship with their neighbors across the bridge.
Not as good as I expected... May 26, 2006
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
Alex's last book There Are No Children Here is hard to top, but I tried to give The Other Side of the River a chance. What was the point of the book? To show the different levels of racial tensions within this particular community or to find out who killed the teenager? I am still trying to understand the purpose of the book. I felt like I didn't learn anything new.
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